No Longer Human
by Ja495ck
Summary: When Hagrid goes to give Harry his letter, he drops everything and takes him straight to Hogwarts, a month early, despite the rules that no student is allowed to remain at school during the summer hols. What has he found that is horrifying enough to jolt the otherwise oblivious half-giant into action? Abusive Dursleys, Snape adopts Harry. Rated M for severe abuse.
1. Prologue

**AN: Not mine, blah blah blah. These chapters are the updated ones; I figured it was time to delete the old ones. Oh, and Lemonn was who I got the idea for Harry not being able to die except if Voldemort kills him. I know the Dursleys are much worse than in cannon; that's why this is a _fanfic._**

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

So when Petunia Dursley opened the door to set out the milk and found herself in the entirely _ab_normal situation of discovering a baby on her doorstep, she screamed. The strange baby began to cry, baby Dudley upstairs in his room began to wail, and Vernon came thundering down the stairs to see what was wrong.

Seeing a neighbor's face peeking out the curtains of their kitchen window, Petunia gingerly picked the bundle up and quickly disappeared back inside. It was a freak; she could tell. She could feel it, just as she'd been able to sense her freak-sister's freakishness.

"A baby?" Vernon asked sleepily.

"No. It's a freak," she spat.

"Surely not?" he asked, taking the baby from her and bouncing it in his arms, trying to get it to stop crying. The movement caused a heavy-papered envelope to drop to the floor. Dread settling into the pit of her stomach, Petunia bent to retrieve it. She opened it, her eyes flicking rapidly over the letter.

"It's my bloody nephew!" she shrieked, undoing all of her husband's hard work to calm the child. "My freak sister's freak son!" She thrust the letter at him. His face turned rather green as he read it.

No longer showing the care he'd used when he'd thought it was just a baby, he set it carelessly on the table and turned to face his wife. "What do we do, Pet? Killing an adult freak. . . it's dangerous. We can't keep it."

"And we can't foist it off on someone else, either. We'll have to kill it."

They tried drowning it. They tried cutting its throat. They tried beating it, they tried choking it, they tried smothering it. They tried poisoning it. They didn't dare try Vernon's shotgun; the neighbors wouldn't possibly miss _that._

When Petunia chucked it into the oven, the heat turned up as hot as it would go, and two hours later The Freak's screams _still_hadn't ceased, they had to admit defeat. It was simply too freakish, too unnatural to die, and now much too damaged to just drop off somewhere. If anyone saw them with it, they'd be carted off to prison faster than they could blink, and both their precious Diddykins and the freak would be put in Vernon's sister Marge's care. _That_ woman didn't know _a thing_ about cleanliness. Petunia would _not_ allow her son to be raised in a household like _that!_

So they'd have to keep The Freak. And being that they'd be forced to put up with it they decided to get as much use out of it as they could, whether that use included cooking, cleaning, gardening, an anger release, or a sexual release.

At less than two years old, The Freak's brain wasn't developed enough to cope with the chaotic kaleidoscope of sensations, both pain and physical pleasure, caused by the last. Thus, his mind broke under the strain. All consciousness turned off, only allowing a rather robotic obedience to basic commands to get through, as to avoid as many beatings as he could. Not that he noticed these anymore.


	2. Mr H Potter

It was just another day, indistinguishable from any other, mild, late-July day. Dudley and Vernon Dursley joined Petunia for breakfast, Vernon with his paper and Dudley with his Smelting stick, which he smacked the table with.

They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.

"Get the mail, Dudley," said Vernon Dursley from behind his paper.

"Make The Freak get it."

"Get the mail, Freak."

The Freak shuffled painfully past the table, staggering and whimpering when Dudley smacked him with his Smelting stick, but otherwise didn't react. He just continued on out of the kitchen. Dudley sneered after him, and dug into his bacon.

Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.

"Marge's ill," he informed his wife. "Ate a funny whelk. . ."

"Dad, who's Mr. H. Potter?" Dudley asked suddenly.

Vernon gestured for his son to hand the yellow envelope over. When he read whom it was addressed to, his face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. When he opened the envelope and shook out the letter, it became the grayish white of old porridge.

"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.

Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Vernon held it high out of his reach. Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.

"Vernon! Oh my goodness-Vernon!"

They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Dudley was still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.

"I want to read it," he said loudly.

"Freak, cupboard, now. Dudley, out," croaked Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.

The Freak understood nothing of the conversation besides that command. He calmly left the corner of the kitchen he had claimed and vacated the room, escaping to the safety of his cupboard. Dudley had to be bodily thrown out.

Next morning at breakfast, The Freak brought Vernon another letter addressed to the mysterious Mr. H. Potter, The Cupboard Under the Stairs, 4 Privet Drive. Dudley jumped him, trying to get it, and Vernon had to wrestle him to keep it away. The Freak, as always, noticed nothing. Had he, he might have thanked Dudley for keeping Vernon's wrath off of him for two full days.

Dudley sneaked out of bed at six o'clock the next morning, and crept down the stairs in the dark. He was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. Unfortunately, his father had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Dudley didn't do exactly that, and Dudley stepped on his face. Dudley didn't manage to get a hold of any of the three letters that came that day.

The Freak just slept in the cupboard until Petunia woke him to cook breakfast. Vernon nailed the mail slot shut, and smashed The Freak's hand with the hammer when he shuffled by too loudly.

On Friday, twelve of the mysterious letters arrived. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the window in the downstairs bathroom.

Vernon stayed home again. After burning all the letters (and, when he didn't serve breakfast quickly enough, The Freak's face), he boarded up all the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out.

On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two-dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Petunia through the living room window and which were accidentally cooked into the food by The Freak. The Freak got boiling grease poured down his throat for _that._

On Sunday morning, Vernon sat down at the breakfast table, looking tired and rather ill, but happy.

"Fine day, Sunday. In my opinion, best day of the week. Why's that, Dudley?"

Dudley just shrugged.

"No post on Sundays," Vernon answered his own question cheerfully. "No blasted letters today-"

Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and smacked him sharply in the face. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but The Freak just sat calmly in the corner he'd claimed.

"That does it," said Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his mustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!" The Freak, misunderstanding the command, only recognizing the word 'clothes,' started doing the laundry. He earned a re-broken arm for his trouble, stuffed into a large duffle bag, and dumped into the trunk of the car. He barely noticed.

They drove. And they drove. Even Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while.

"Shake 'em off. . . shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.

They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling. He'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.

The next morning found the Dursleys eating stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast at the hotel they'd stayed at the previous night. The Freak, not allowed to be around normal people, had been left in the trunk the entire time.

"'Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H. Potter? Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk," the hotel owner asked. She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address.

Dudley made a grab for the letter but Vernon knocked his had out of the way. The woman stared.

"I'll take them," said Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room.

"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.

"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked his mother dully late that afternoon. Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.

It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley sniveled.

"It's Monday," he told her. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a _television."_

The Freak didn't know it, but tomorrow, Tuesday, was his eleventh birthday. Not that he would have any reason to be excited, if he _had_ known.

Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.

"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"

It was very cold outside the car. Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there.

"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Vernon gleefully, slapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!"

A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below them.

"I've already got us some rations," said Vernon, snatching The Freak's duffle bag out of the trunk,"so all aboard!"

It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.

The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.

Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and three bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shriveled up.

He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail.

As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Petunia found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, and The Freak, finally released from the bag, was left to curl up on the floor, blanket-less. He was too cold, hungry, miserable and in pain to sleep, but he didn't really notice.


	3. The Freak

BOOM! The knock shook the little house from its foundations up. As Dudley, previously asleep on the couch, bolted upright, a shadow calmly picked itself off the filthy floor and lurched to a darkened corner in the room and sat down. The knock came again, and the boy gripped his blanket, his fear rooting him to the spot, which didn't defuse even when his parents, his father clutching a shotgun, came into the room as quickly as they could.

The third knock came with a SMASH! The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.

A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.

The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. "S'rry 'bout that," he said. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all.

Vernon took a shaky step forward, brandishing his shotgun. "You are breaking and entering! I demand that you leave at once!"

The giant stomped forward, grabbed the gun in Vernon's hand, and bent it upwards. "Ah, dry up Dursley, yeh great prune!" It went off, leaving a hole for the rain to come through, debris from the roof fluttering unnoticed around them. The giant turned back to Dudley Dursley and smiled. "Mind, I haven't seen yeh since yeh 'as a baby, 'Arry, but yer a bit more along than I would've expected, particularly 'round the middle."

Yet another person who called Dudley Harry; Mrs. Figg, the crazy cat lady down the street, and a few random strangers in London called him that. For some reason, his parents never corrected them, and hurried him away before _he _could.

The fear rushed out of him; this could very well be his only chance to find out what was going on. "Why are people I don't know always calling me Harry? My name's Dudley!"

The giant's angry narrowed eyes brought it back. "An' I suppose they tol' yeh they're yer real parents too, eh? Yer name's 'Arry, 'Arry Potter. That scar o' yers proves it."

"Wh-what scar?"

The large intruder slowly reached out a hand and lifted the frightened boy's hair away from his forehead. It was smooth.

The giant paled and stepped back. "Yer _not _'Arry. . ." He turned to the adults, his rage back full force. "Where's 'Arry?! What did yeh do ter 'im?!" They didn't answer.

Dudley frowned thoughtfully. The letter, the first one at least, was addressed to _Mr. H. Potter, The Cupboard under the Stairs, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. _Their exact address, no mistake, but The Cupboard under the Stairs? That's where they kept the cleaning stuff. . . oh, and The Freak! And then his parents had brought The Freak along, when before, whenever they went somewhere, they just locked it in the cupboard! Mr. H. Potter _must be_ The Freak!

Proud of the rather exhausting logic, Dudley said, "Oh, you must mean The Freak. It's over there."

Hagrid the Half-Giant noticed that the adults behind the baby whale had gone very pale, but the boy didn't. He seemed rather proud to be able to answer questions when they weren't. Hagrid turned his head in the pointed direction and gasped.

Sitting there, tucked securely away in the shadows by the corner, was the most frightening. . . thing. . . the half-giant had ever seen. It was roughly the height of a five-year-old child, but there all similarity ended. Its skin was pure black, not black as in someone of African descent, but _black, _like a particularly bad bruise. Its limbs were as narrow as the average man's thumb, emaciated, beyond skeletal, every bone visibly prominent, and distorted and bent at impossible angles. It just sat there, unnaturally silent and still for any child, green eyes dull and staring, sunken deeply into its skull-like face.

Falling back on his knowledge of wild and potentially dangerous creatures, Hagrid crouched down in front of it. "'Arry?" The thing that could not possibly be the eleven-year-old, _human _savior of the wizarding world, didn't react at all. Swallowing hard, Hagrid cautiously reached out and lifted the filthy bangs, exposing the forehead. It wasn't smooth as it should be, but crowded with creases, dents, and sharp, flat, moveable bits of. . . something. . . beneath the skin, like some sort of demented jigsaw puzzle.

At some point, the bone had been shattered.

The creature flinched and whimpered at his touch, shrinking back against the wall. The half-giant jolted out of his frozen shock and horror. Swallowing hard against the lump of dread that had settled in his throat, he got back to the task at hand: searching for the famous lightning bolt scar.

It was there. Under layers and layers of shallower, nonmagical scar tissue and bruises, it was there. One had to look for quite a while to find it, but it was there.


	4. Shouldn't Be Alive

Severus Snape had just finished with everything. He'd written all his lesson plans, restocked the potions of the infirmary, his classroom, and his own personal stores. He had all the potions' ingredients that didn't need to be fresh, all put away in the storeroom. Everything was ready for the following year of hell: teaching insufferable dunderheads, this time including the. . . spawn. . . produced by the incredibly distasteful (and for him, painful) coupling of his only love and his third-most despised enemy.

The brat would be his father all over again: a spoiled, arrogant, lazy little troublemaker with near-suicidal hubris. And he'd agreed to protect the little shit, Merlin help him.

For now, though, he had a month of freedom. A month of no responsibilities, of not having to do anything other than what _he _wanted. And right now, at 1 o'clock in the morning, just having finished his last potion, he wanted to _sleep._

The moment he'd finally gotten settled into bed and was nearly asleep, a frantic banging began at the door. He groaned and held a pillow over his head, and would've happily fallen asleep had the disturber-of-his-much-deserved-peace not _broken down the bloody door and set the bloody wards off!_

Snarling, he leapt out of bed and pulled a black robe on over his sleepwear (also black). Knowing only two people who were strong enough to break down a Hogwarts door with their bare hands, and the wolf hadn't been seen since his precious group of Marauders fell apart, he wasn't the least bit worried. He was, however, extremely annoyed, and decided to give into the childish and spiteful impulse to take as long as realistically possible to answer.

"What the bloody hell, Rubeus?!"

The half-giant, bent over and panting in exhaustion, held up a hand in a gesture to wait. Snape ground his teeth in fury.

"Sev'rus. . . went ter give li'l 'Arry 'is letter. . . bloody muggles-" He broke off with a great bawling sob and buried his face in a tablecloth-sized handkerchief.

"Potter's dead?" Snape swallowed hard against the lump of dread in his throat, leaning heavily against the doorframe. Enemy's brat or not, he'd still sworn to keep the boy alive at all costs.

"No, but 'e's 'urt bad, 'ad ter bring 'im ter the infirm'ry. Boy woul'n' even _talk _ter me, like 'e didn' even know I 'as there!" Hagrid pulled the smaller man into a dead run beside him (nearly yanking his arm out of its socket in the process), but had broken down into sobs again, thus negating any attempt the potions master may have made to question him further.

Had he not been so concerned by the normally innocent, oblivious half-giant's demeanor, Snape might have been annoyed by the fact that, with Minerva McGonagall and Albus Dumbledore elsewhere for the summer hols, _he _was next in command, and therefore all responsibilities fell to _him._ However, he _was _concerned, for the boy had to be spectacularly injured for Hagrid to even notice, let alone feel the need to disobey the Headmaster and bring him _here. _Even so, nothing, absolutely _nothing, _neither working with the countless abused children that landed in his House, nor the years he'd been forced to stand back and watch while the Dark Lord tortured his victims so as not to blow his cover, could have prepared Snape for _this._

At first, he thought Hagrid was trying to play some sort of prank on him, taking one of those odd creatures of his and trying to pass it off as the Brat-Who-Lived, because whatever it was, this _thing _was _not _human, and most certainly _not _the pampered Prince Potter.

With an exasperated, long-suffering sigh, the Potions Master turned to the hysterically weeping half-giant. "What is that?" he asked with forced patience.

"'Arry Potter," he sobbed, and Snape knew the Gamekeeper of Hogwarts had finally gone off his rocker. Harry Potter indeed!

He took a cautious step forward, preparing to take the creature down and release it into the forbidden forest, then stopped. "Is it dangerous?" he asked, then mentally smacked himself, ignoring Hagrid's headshake in the negative. Of course it was dangerous! Everything the blasted half-giant brought back with him was dangerous!

"Anything I should know about it?" The Potions Master tried again, slowly reaching out to the Thing in its corner. It didn't react, just stared forward with unseeing green eyes. . . Lily's eyes. He froze. Lily's eyes, and James Potter's impossibly messy black hair, though far longer and filthier than the arrogant Quidditch star would ever wear. "This is Harry Potter?"

"Yes," was wailed.

"Bloody hell. Get Poppy!"

Two minutes later found Hagrid sobbing incoherently over the Floo to Poppy. Snape rolled his eyes at this, then turned back to the. . . to Potter. Bloody hell he looked terrible. "It's alright, Potter," he said calmly, quietly. That was the best he could manage, a cold, detached professionalism; he hadn't used a kind or gentle tone in a very long time.

Potter didn't react, still just sat there, staring vacantly, didn't even blink when he waved his hand or snapped his fingers in front of his face. Snape sighed again, and with extreme care, placed his hands on the. . . boy's shoulders to pull him out of the corner so he could take him to a bed, and the boy showed his first reaction since he'd arrived. He whimpered and flinched.

Snape gave another sigh and, ignoring the quiet, animalistic whines, pulled the limp, unresisting, frighteningly lightweight child into his arms. Every bone was clearly felt and jagged with obvious breaks. He didn't dare allow the boy to stand on his own feet. Internally cursing at the indignity of it all, the man carefully stood, carefully holding the child that could have been his, should have been his, and deposited him onto one of the beds.

Without any spark of defiance, the still vacantly staring Potter slid over the edge and calmly hobbled back to the corner he'd seemingly claimed. Groaning softly in frustration, Snape brought him back, this time keeping a hand on the distorted shoulder to keep the brat from getting up again.

By this time, Poppy Pomfrey had still not come through, and was still trying to puzzle out Hagrid's words through his sobs, and Snape was becoming very frustrated.

"Bloody hell, just come through!" _Why _did he have to be surrounded by imbeciles?

The plump medi-witch popped out of the fireplace, hands on her hips. "Severus Snape! If you were still a student here, I'd have you scrubbing out bedpans for a month! How dare you speak-Oh, no, don't you _dare _roll your eyes at me young man-" She ended her tirade on a gasp as she finally caught sight of what he was holding down. "What on Earth is that?"

"Harry Potter, savior of the wizarding world," he spat sarcastically, too irritated to enjoy the gob-smacked expression on her face.

"H-how can that be? He doesn't even look human!"

"Well why don't you cast some diagnostic spells and find out?" She huffed angrily and shot him a withering glare, but didn't reprimand him for his tone, and waved her wand at the broken creature beneath his hand. A parchment and quill appeared, and though the latter flew across the former at an incredible speed and the script was small and cramped, the parchment continued to grow and fill, longer and longer until it reached the floor, trailed across the room, and out the door before it stopped.

Eyes wide, Poppy waved her wand again, so that the list only showed the life-threatening injuries. The list shrank a great deal, but still reached the floor. Again she had to condense it down, this time to a manageable, arm-length summary. She skimmed through it, but didn't manage to get through a quarter of it before the sheer magnitude of what she was reading fully hit her, and she became too overwhelmed to continue. Face pale as death; she turned her gaze back to the stern man.

"Severus, he should be dead. The organ failure, the brain damage, the internal bleeding, the broken bones. . . The worst damage seems to have occurred when he was fifteen months old-_fifteen months, _Severus! He should have _died _soon after his parents did, perhaps the very day his guardians took him in! There is _absolutely no reason _for him to be alive. _None!"_

Though outwardly, he showed no reaction, Snape was feeling rather nauseated. He'd been around numerous torture victims before, but they'd died long before they'd reached this point and thus ended further injury. She was right; there was _no possible way _for the kid to still be alive, but he _was._

"Magic," he growled roughly. "His accidental magic has been keeping him alive."

"Not for this long! It should have run out long ago and left him a squib, and therefore _dead, _before he was two-years-old! For this to be the case, his magical core would have to be larger than all of those of all of the wizards in Britain put together, _including _you, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, _and Albus Dumbledore!"_

A feeling of hysteria beginning to bubble up his throat, Snape's lips quirked quite inappropriately. "Then it's fortunate that he has been chosen to defeat the Dark Lord, isn't it?"

"This isn't _funny, _Severus!" she shrieked.

Ruthlessly battling to regain his lost composure, he sighed. "No, it isn't. Now, correcting the internal bleeding is our first priority, is it not?"

Before she could answer, Phineas Nigellus Black appeared in a picture in the infirmary and said, "He's here."


	5. Corruption of the Light

Albus Dumbledore flooed back to his office at 3 o'clock, thoroughly irritated by the most recent turn of events.

He had been attending a Very Important Meeting with the Ministry, which, much to his embarrassment, was interrupted by his Gamekeeper's frantic owl. The Half-Giant's handwriting was deplorable at the best of times, but then it seemed as frantic as his familiar. Finally he was able to puzzle out that some sort of emergency had necessitated the immediate return to Hogwarts. Disgustedly, he had just created a Portkey for two to Hogsmeade, unwilling to put up with the owl, which must have been ordered to keep bothering him until he'd sent a reply.

When the old man stepped gracefully out of his office fireplace,he most certainly didn't expect to find his Potions Master flooing in moments after him. Nor did he expect the incensed look in his eyes, the quaking of the small objects assorted throughout the room, or the strength with which he brutally shoved him against the wall by the collar of his robes.

All muscles, even those in his face, quivering with pure rage, the younger man gave a shaky, thoroughly chilling little smile, and, in the soft tone that showed just how very dangerously close he was to becoming violent, said, "Give me one reason, Headmaster, just _one _reason, why I shouldn't immediately return to the Dark Lord and hand over the Potter-boy, because what would await him there would be far more merciful compared to what _you _have done to him! I'm sure if I were to tell the rest of the Order what you've done, they would follow me there in a heartbeat."

"Severus-" The office was shaking hard enough to begin sending the smallest contraptions to the floor.

"Don't you dare! How can you call yourself the leader of the light, hmm? Not even the Dark Lord tortures fifteen-month-old infants! The boy doesn't even look _human _anymore! You _never even checked on him, did you?! Did you?!"_

"The blood-wards-"

_"SHUT UP! _You know _bloody well _they won't work if they don't love him! Is _this _what you call love?! _Is it?!" _He thrust the results from the diagnostic scan in the old coot's face. "Better yet, give me one bloody reason why I shouldn't take a page out of that Lestrange bitch's book and crucio you into a mental state similar to the one the boy is in now! It would be no more than you deserve!"

Dumbledore's face paled as he read, but otherwise remained expressionless. This outraged Snape further.

"You son of a bitch! How can you just stand there like you don't even care?! He _should be dead! _He'd be _better off _dead! Minerva told you! She _told _you those muggle filth weren't fit to raise a child,_ and you never even checked on him! _Lily and I _told _you what Petunia was like, _and you still left him there! You never checked-_No, wait, I'll bet you _did _check on him. You probably watched for hours while they beat him, _didn't_ you? Probably got off on it, you _sick, TWISTED FU-" _Dumbledore's wild magic added to the mix, shattering a window. Neither wizard noticed.

_"That's ENOUGH! _How _dare _you?! You have no right to judge me, not with _your _past! After all I've done for you _how dare you?! _I _am not _Voldemort! If it wasn't for me, you'd be in Azkaban! You owe me _far too much-"_

Wind howled, whipping their hair (and beard, in Dumbledore's case) around their faces. Shards of powder-fine glass, all that remained of all half-way fragile items, and even the largest, heaviest furniture swirled around the room, everything miraculously managing to miss the two wizards, inches apart, trying to inflict a heinous death on the other with just a look.

_"I have done EVERYTHING you've asked of me! I have stood by, while the Dark Lord tortured and killed innocent people, and SMILED, because YOU willed it! __When I was simply a death eater, I could escape in the confusion and hide, so as not to have to participate in the violence involved in raids._

_"Then, under your orders, I had to do absolutely EVERYTHING that monster required of me, and PRETEND TO ENJOY IT, to rise through his bloody ranks and into his bloody trusted inner circle to provide information to you and your precious bloody order, who never trusted me, by the way! If I refused him, I'd just get crucioed. If I refused YOU, YOU'D start spouting out bollocks about how it was saving countless lives, and a couple muggles didn't matter in the grand scheme of things!_

_"Now look! All the hopes of the wizarding world down the drain, all the horrible things I've done were for NOTHING, and it's ALL YOUR BLOODY FAULT! YOU made me into a hardened killer and worse! Not him, YOU! The worst things I've ever done were on YOUR ORDERS, so DON'T you DARE play all high and mighty holier than thou with me!"_

The wind started to die down a bit, and the old man sighed, all anger leaving with the air he exhaled, great sadness and weariness taking its place. "Do you really think me such a monster, Severus?"

The glower didn't relax, but exhausted by his rage, the destructive forces wound down, leaving the office in ruins, but the crackle of magic remained, poised and ready to strike again at a moment's notice. "Several came to you with concerns regarding the boy's placement, but you brushed them off. You left the Boy-Who-Lived in a deplorably abusive home to die, just as you have forced so many of my snakes to return to _their _deplorable, abusive families. Of course I think you're a monster."

Dumbledore righted the overturned chairs and gestured for him to sit. He sneered and crossed his arms, and remained standing. The horrid old man shrugged and sat down.

"I'm sorry to hear that. I'm sorry things had to be that way, but they did. We must all make sacrifices-"

"For the Greater Good?" the younger man snapped. "Spare me. I know your tricks-"

"Let me finish." When Snape snarled but remained silent, Dumbledore continued, "Do you remember the Prophecy, my dear boy?"

The storm inside the room started to pick up again.

Dumbledore glanced mildly at the few still-whole items beginning to shudder. "I'm not trying to guilt you, Severus; merely asking if you remember it."

"Get to the bloody point," the Potions Master snapped.

"'And either must die at the hand of the other.' Simply, Harry cannot die except if Voldemort kills him, and likewise, only Harry can kill Voldemort. As long as Harry calls the dwelling of his mother's family home, neither Voldemort nor his followers can harm him there."

"Well he can't bloody well kill him as a catatonic mess, now, can he?!"

"No, he can't, which is why I need you to heal him. Do whatever it takes; you will not kill him."

"You want me to clean up your mess, Headmaster? Fine. But I'm not letting you make any more, either." Dumbledore didn't answer, just sat there, gazing at him expressionlessly. Snape snarled again and swirled around, stalking to the door, He'd just managed to wretch it open when the blasted old coot's voice froze him where he stood.

"Severus, you know what must be done, don't you?" Snape hesitated for a moment, face contorted in pain, then stormed out of the office without a reply.


	6. Complications

"Come on, Sweetheart. The bed's much nicer than that corner." The. . . boy didn't move, or react at all. Pomfrey sighed, then jolted out of her skin as the infirmary doors banged open.

Snape sent a flash of light past her. The decrepit creature that was Harry Potter sagged against the wall in sleep. Another flick of the man's wand sent the child sailing gently through the air and settling softly onto a bed. "You are a healer. Bloody act like it," the man snarled, snatching an empty vial off the top of a cupboard and hurled it at the wall to shatter into thousands of tiny pieces.

"And _you _act like the adult you are and _stop destroying my infirmary! _What the bloody hell is _wrong _with you?!"

He upended an unoccupied bed and kicked it across the room, then turned and fixed her with a snarl of animalistic fear, covered by a blanket of anger anyone else would be unable to see through. _"He wants me to use Legilimency on the child!"_

Pomfrey's eyes widened in understanding, and she went over and squeezed the young man's shoulder. Just as he would have done as a teenager, he shot her a sulky glare and tried to shrug off her hand. And, just as she would've done when he'd been a teenager, the late middle-aged woman wouldn't be put off.

"He is a child, a _mentally disturbed _child! Do you have any idea of how dangerous that would be?! I won't have my own thoughts, I won't be able to distance myself, and it will be pure dumb luck if I make it back at all! I'll be experiencing his memories first hand, _as him! _I _do not _want to go through whatever was horrible enough to put him in a coma, let alone be trapped in it!"

She pulled him into a motherly hug, ignoring his halfhearted and purely-to-save-pride struggles. "Then refuse. It would be cruel to even try to heal him anyway. We should just leave him asleep and let nature take its cour-"

"He won't die."

"I don't believe in that prophecy rubbish."

"Look at him! He should be dead! This proves it! The prophesy _is _real, and _does _pertain to him! We _have _to find a way to heal him!"

"Fine," she snapped again. "Where do you propose I start? Stop the bleeding? Why bother? His body's producing enough to make up for it! We stop it, and best case scenario, circulation stops because there's too much blood to move. Worst case, his veins and arteries burst. _I have never dealt with anything like this before! He's not adhering to the basic laws of nature! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO!"_

"Draught of the Living Death, so at least he's not in pain or getting any worse while we figure out what to do?"

"No, no consumable potions. He's been digesting his own stomach, for a long time. There's barely any left!"

He snatched the injury summary away from her and scanned it, using impoliteness to hide his ever-growing nausea and horror. With forced, professional calm, he said, "It appears I must invent some new spells. Do what you can; I'll be in my lab."

The incantation part of a spell was fairly easy, for one fluent in Latin, such as one Severus Snape. One merely had to translate the spell's action or effect into the language and it was done. It was the wand's movement during the spell that was difficult, for it had to at least loosely mimic what the action would look like if done manually. For example, _Wingardium Leviosa, _the levitation spell, required the swish and flick movements of the wand, swish to slide the air under the object, and flick to force the air upwards, pushing the object ahead of it. Or, for _Secumsempra, _a spell of Snape's own creation, required one to hold the wand like a sword, and quickly slash through the air, to cause cuts on one's target the way a bladed weapon would.

Creating new potions was even more difficult; nearly impossible, really. Potions weren't merely ingredients, after all. They were the reactions between ingredients, the preparation of ingredients, the timing and order of additions, the order, timing, direction, and pattern of stirs, what the stirring rods, cauldrons, knives, mortar and pestles were made of, the age and freshness of ingredients, the stage of the moon when ingredients were gathered, where the ingredients had been harvested, etcetera. They were impossibly finicky, required impossible precision, impeccable timing; a combination of an infinite number of variables.

Snape loved potions, loved the headaches, the clammy feeling of the fumes on his skin, the stress, the urgency, the absolute perfection required in every step, and wished he could be doing that instead (damn that bitch Petunia; how hard could it be to just _feed _the kid once in a while?). Inventing new spells just didn't challenge his mind like potions did, didn't require all of his attention, or force the rest of the world to fade away.

Without potions, he was completely at the mercy of the demons and ghosts of his past, be they the Dark Lord, the part he played in Potter's current circumstances, Dumbledore and the things Snape had done under his orders. . .

He froze mid-wand motion to force a hand over his mouth as specific memories crashed over and consumed him.

_The Mark stung as it was branded into his arm, but he'd had worse from his bastard muggle father. Much worse. He didn't make a sound or shed a tear, just bit his lip and winced a little. The Dark Lord smiled at his restraint, and Severus Snape was filled with pride. _He _was by far the most stoic of the lot Marked today. _He _was, the _half-blood.

_He smirked at Lucius over his shoulder, and received a relieved grin in return. _

_The Dark Lord spread his arms wide. "Now let the festivities begin!"_

_The "festivities" turned out to be muggle women, bare, bound, and struggling as they were dragged into the light by their hair. The other newly-initiated Death Eaters quit whining over their sore arms and fell upon them at once. Severus stood frozen, staring._

_He was seventeen, _of course _he'd had his fantasies, _of course_ he'd wanted women, but _NOT LIKE THIS._ . . it had just been a word to him before, didn't really mean anything to him, but this. . . He felt sick._

_"Snape, this one's for you," Lucius called. "I told him you have a thing for redheads."_

_Numb on his feet, Severus stepped forward. She couldn't be a day over fifteen, and probably younger than that. She raised tearful brown eyes to his face, then looked away as though his mere appearance hurt her. Snape couldn't do more than stare, panicked, his heart pounding painfully in his chest._

_"Severus, don't you appreciate your gift? I was asked to save this one especially for you." The Dark Lord's voice had a harsh, warning edge to it. Snape turned back to him, swallowing hard as the red-eyed man idly fingered his wand. _

_"I-I do, my Lord. You must know I do. I-I just-I'm impotent!"_

_The Dark Lord smiled, flashing brilliant white teeth. "Ah, well, that's easily remedied." He waved his wand, and Snape squeezed his eyes shut against tears as his body painfully, traitorously responded. _

_"I-I also don't want my first to be muggle filth!"_

_The older Death Eaters snickered. That, apparently, was the wrong thing to say. The Dark Lord's smile hardened. "You think yourself above your peers then? I'm sure some of them have never partaken before either. You don't know how lucky you are, boy. You, a filthy little half-blood, allowed into _my _organization. _Crucio!"

_Pain. . . With a father like his, Snape had thought he knew all there was to know about pain. He was wrong. It hadn't caused him to scream since he was six years old, but he screamed now. He hadn't cried since he was told his father had killed his mother for allowing him to go to Hogwarts, but he sobbed as the curse was lifted. He wouldn't wish that curse on _BLACK!

_"But I suppose I shall grant your wish." The Dark Lord signaled the older Death Eaters, who grinned. _All _of them had a go._

_It hurt, but not as much as the girl's accusing, hateful glare, as Lucius went at her. . . with knives._

_No, wait. . . _Snape shook his head. That last bit had been. . . wrong, somehow; shiny. He turned it over in his mind again. For the rest of the memory, the girl's eyes had been brown, but electric blue eyes had glowered at him. Dumbledore's eyes. An implanted memory. Snape concentrated, and broke the false bit. The girl hadn't even noticed him. She would've been harmed again by the others even if he had partaken. His refusal hadn't affected her fate in the slightest. And at least that time, he'd escaped with his soul intact.

Once again, he was flooded with rage. Dumbledore had manipulated him, tortured him with guilt. He'd convinced him, with that gentle, grandfatherly persona, to let him view his memories, then, in Snape's anguish, fiddled with them, in order to maximize the pain, to convince him that playing his part, that torturing, maiming, and murdering his way to the Inner Circle was justified, that it was actually merciful toward the victims. That what the others would do to them would be so much worse, that his participation would somehow save them from it, would save so many lives that theirs wouldn't matter, were nothing in value compared to the information a trusted Death Eater could bring back. . .

Bollocks. Most of the time, Dumbledore would just let the raids happen as the Dark Lord planned, so that "the Dark Lord would trust him." As if the Dark Lord trusted anyone. It was bollocks. It was the last straw. Dumbledore was going to _pay. _


	7. Leader Lost

As the last of the Order trickled into the infirmary, Elphias Doge cleared his throat. "So why are-" Lupin's nose twitched, and his scarred face immediately shone like the sun breaking out of the clouds.

"Harry!" He sprinted for the bed and, in his excitement and werewolf strength (Snape had to Occlude rapidly to keep from trembling at the memories), tore the curtains from the hooks. They fell limply from his hand as he caught sight of the occupant. Except for Hagrid, Snape, Pomfrey, and Albus Dumbledore, the others crowded around as well.

"Harry? As in Harry _Potter?!" _cried Emmeline Vance.

"B-but. . . no! Harry Potter's just fine! As of two months ago, he was fine! There's no way that's Harry Potter!" protested Dedalus Diggle.

Arabella Figg nodded desperately. "And _I _saw him five days ago! He's a perfectly healthy boy! A tad overweight, and a bit of a bully, but-"

"Tha' weren' 'Arry. Tha' 'as Dudley Dursley-"

Lupin spun around to face the group again, his eyes flashing gold (Snape had his wand in a white knuckled grip), startling Hagrid to silence. "You had people who didn't know him, guarding him?" His voice was as cold as ice.

"It had to be someone who didn't have a personal attachment to the boy, someone who wouldn't be tempted to take him-" Dumbledore started, but was interrupted by his brother Aberforth.

"Oh, so you _let, _or perhaps _intended, _for this to happen?!"

"Nonsense!" Flitwick squeaked. "I'm sure Albus took every precaution to keep the boy out of the hands of Death Eat-"

"It warn't Death Ea'ers," Hagrid said with finality, causing a moment of absolute silence.

Minerva McGonagall's face turned gray. "Lily's family?" she whispered.

Snape answered her with a tight nod. She slowly sank into a chair. "Albus, how could you? I _told _you! I _bloody told _you there were concerns, and you _never even checked on him?!"_

"I had Arabella and Dedalus watching the home," Albus stated calmly.

"For _Death Eaters!" _shrieked Figg. "You didn't say _anything _about the family! Or _anything _about them having a son as well! They must've kept him inside, I never saw, I _swear!_ I never saw _anything_ that would suggest the presence of another boy!"

"And, as family, I assumed-"

"Bollocks! Bloody, _bloody _bollocks! _I've told you about my Slytherins COUNTLESS times! You know VERY WELL that family DOES NOT necessarily equal love or kindness! Or don't you remember telling me as an ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD-BOY THAT MY MOTHER WAS MURDERED BY MY FATHER FOR ALLOWING ME TO ATTEND A 'BLOODY FREAK SCHOOL'?!"_ shouted Snape, thereby opening the floodgates of chaos.

_"Not to mention that I TOLD you there were concerns with the Dursley family SPECIFICALLY!"_

_ "You told him that it was HIS FAULT?! No wonder he became a bloody Death Eater!"_

_"How many OTHER CHILDREN HAVE YOU DRIVEN TO YOU-KNOW-WHO?!"_

_ "You drove TOM RIDDLE into becoming what he is today!"_

_"How could you be so bloody CARELESS with the CHILD OF PROPHESY?!"_

_"Child of Prophesy?! He's a CHILD! You're saying he would have CHILDREN fighting in the WAR?! MY children?!" _Mrs. Weasley shrieked, her voice finally rising above the rest of them.

"'And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal.' Harry Potter _is _the only one who can defeat him," Albus Dumbledore said firmly.

"Well he's certainly not his equal like _this," _Augusta Longbottom sniffed dismissively. "How do you know that it doesn't mean my Neville is the Child of Prophecy, marked by virtue of his being. . . well, at least _somewhat _functional?" She actually sounded a bit. . . _hopeful. . . _by the end, causing nearly everyone in the room to look at her in shocked askance.

Albus nodded thoughtfully. "Perhaps. . . we shall train up both of them, just in case."

"No! _Absolutely NOT! They are CHILDREN! You CAN'T make them FIGHT IN A WAR!"_

_"Neville isn't FRANK, Augusta! He's not an Auror or a war-veteran; he is an ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD BOY! A CHILD!"_

_"And Harry's not even CONSCIOUS, and even if he was, he's suffered ENOUGH!"_

_"He's been like this since he was fifteen-months-old! There's no telling what his mental state will be like when he wakes up, or even if he WILL wake up AT ALL!"_

"Which is why Severus will need to use Legilimency to get him back."

_"NO! It's YOUR mess! YOU risk YOUR sanity to get him back! I'm DONE! I've HAD it! The worst things I've EVER done were AS A DOUBLE-AGENT! As a Death Eater, I was beneath the Dark Lord's notice, and could sneak away and not have to do ANYTHING! YOU'RE the one who wanted me in the Inner Circle! YOU'RE the one who FIDDLED with my memories, and GUILTED me into committing atrocities! AND FOR WHAT?! YOU LET THINGS HAPPEN AS HE WOULD EXPECT SO THAT HE WOULDN'T SUSPECT ME! My spying accomplished NOTHING! YOU destroyed me!"_

_"You_ were the one to hand over the prophecy. _You _were the one who got the Potters killed. It's because of _YOU _that the boy's like this."

As Snape's face crumpled with grief and he let out a sound like a wounded animal, Aberforth gripped his shoulder supportively and sent his brother a look of purest loathing. "The way I remember it, _he _did everything he could to save them. _YOU'RE the one _who chose to leave the boy with his relatives, disregarding everyone's concerns, _and YOU'RE the one who TOOK THE POTTERS' INVISIBILITY CLOAK WHEN THEY NEEDED IT MOST! The blame for the boy's condition lies firmly at YOUR feet! _I thought you changed, but you haven't. You're _NOTHING_ more than Gellert Grindlewald's _filthy little concubine, who GOT OUR BABY SISTER KILLED, and you NEVER WILL BE!" _The younger members of the Order stared in mute shock.

_"_I'll bet you only defeated him because you didn't want to share power. I'll bet you still claim conjugal visits from him, even though he _OBVIOUSLY wouldn't WANT you anymore!"_

And that was what made Albus Dumbledore's unshakable, unbreakable control shatter. Face flushed with rage and humiliation, he pulled his wand on Elphias Doge, the man he had called friend since his Hogwarts days. With the exceptions of Augusta Longbottom (who was firmly in his support), and Mundungus Fletcher (who was passed out), the entire Order whipped out their wands as well and pointed them at the old man.

"I'd put that down, if I were you," Aberforth said coldly. "Not even the Elder Wand can stand up to seventeen powerful wizards and witches."

Electric blue eyes blazing with hatred, jaw working furiously, Albus slowly lowered his wand and tucked it back into his sleeve. After taking a deep breath and closing his eyes for a moment, he appealed to the Order with the very image of contriteness. "My apologies. That was uncalled for."

No one was moved.

Kingsley Shacklebolt stepped forward, expression stony. "Albus Dumbledore, you are under arrest, for willful negligence, child endangerment, mental assault, attempted magical assault, and the murder, torture, etcetera, of-how many?"

"At least twenty-five, wizards and muggles alike," Snape managed to choke out.

Shacklebolt nodded grimly in thanks. "And twenty-five counts of murder, torture, etcetera, and anything else we can get to stick. You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can and will be used against you in court of law. You have the right to an attorney; if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you-"

Dumbledore smirked. "You can't do anything to me. My arrest makes my testimony at Severus's trial invalid. Without me, he'll go to Azkaban."

"No he won't," Kingsley smirked back. "Double jeopardy."


End file.
